Agriculture Committee on April 28th, 2014

[Andrea Brocklebank]

I think the biggest thing is that we are changing the way the funding system has evolved. It's really positive where we've gone with the clusters, because you do have more direct industry-government engagement in planning. We need to continue that. It's about tweaking the system at this point and ensuring that we continue down that road with longer-term funding. The first cluster was about three-and-a-half to four years in length; the second one is five. We need to see that continue and move forward, and also recognize how to complement other programs around it where there is that high-risk basic research on an ongoing basis.

So I wouldn't say revamp it totally at this point, but tweak it such that you have even greater collaboration between industry and government, especially when it comes to the capacity planning within Agriculture Canada but even, as Michael spoke about, at the university level as well.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Hall, what do you have to say on this?

[Michael Hall]

I think a lot of good things are working, but there's also room for improvement and for recognizing where and why we're losing the people.

Part of it is also, I think, an overall regulatory reform that makes it easier to do business and research, so if you're a researcher, as mentioned earlier, you are not having to filling out a million reports to different avenues for small sectors of funding, but are spending your time doing research. That regulatory reform impacts our competitiveness in our markets right across the world.

I think that's a prime one that will impact a lot of this and allow that innovation to come forward, but it's got to be part and parcel, and I think we need to focus on an overall long-term strategy.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Very well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

You have a minute and a half.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

How do you see the evolution of that ecosystem? As Ms. Brocklebank was saying, we have to tweak things, but we also need a vision of the future. Even if we are talking about food, as is now the case in all areas, high technology and research are major components in industry's development. Do you have any suggestions in that regard, aside from long-term funding, that would support you as well as the development of your products, and, especially, re-establish Canada's reputation internationally?

Mr. Hall, what would you have to say?

[Michael Hall]

Yes, that's a good question.

It goes right back to the commitment and a lot of it has to do with that basic research and making sure that Canada as a whole is committed to having researchers in place who do that basic research and get that done.

I'm not sure that's there anymore. When it gets down to that university level, they do the cuts, and then we're losing our key people and no longer have that continuum. I think it goes back to that long-term strategy to committed funding—not just funding, but knowing exactly what you want in place and how you want to achieve it. Those are the key parts, but how you get there is obviously open for discussion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Mr. Blanchette.

Now we'll move over to Mr. Payne, for five minutes, please.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming in on video. It's good to see that you're back, Mr. Hall.

You both mentioned funding and the researchers having to do so many reports. To me, this seems fairly simple: You should be able to get all these organizations and do one report and copy everybody. It would seem to me that would be quite simple to do and getting those organizations on side. What's your comment on that kind of a process?

[Andrea Brocklebank]

It should be simple. We've tried to assume some leadership from an industry standpoint, but when we looked at it across Canada, there are over 30 research funding agencies. That's among industry and the provincial and federal governments. Everybody has their different priorities, those types of things.

We are trying to be more strategic in our allocation, so instead of our trying to invest a bit in everything and another group trying to invest a bit, we make sure that we understand what they're investing in and what we will then strategically invest in. First of all, that reduces duplication but also makes it a bit easier on our researchers to facilitate that greater coordination and try to be more efficient with their time and ours.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Hall, do you have any comment?

[Michael Hall]

Not really. For the most part, it should be simple; but again, different funding bodies have different requests, different forms, different things, and it would be nice if it were as simple as sending things out.

The dairy industry is very well organized on the research side and they've been utilized in the cluster for the last few years with the genetic research split up. Again, our biggest concern is why leading genetic researchers are leaving our country, be they in the beef or dairy sectors.

Why are they taking that step? It's about having a long-term viable plan and commitment by government to being a partner, because right now it's being totally downloaded to industry.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Certainly I understand the funding requirements and I know that we're putting a lot of funding into research and development. However, one must certainly look at the universities, who are the ones I presume you're making those kinds of cuts and decisions based also on the funding levels they might get from the provinces.

There's one thing I'd like to ask both of you in terms of research and development. If you had your choice of two or three specific research projects, which would be your top two or three, and why?

Funding is limited.

[Andrea Brocklebank]

I will tell you this: we have tried to actually stop doing that because that's when we run into issues of not focusing on food safety as much, so we have taken a portfolio approach instead. That said, our industry right now is faced with competition for limited resources, specifically for acreage. The margins between canola versus beef production are the deciding factors. It's not necessarily profit; it's the margin between those, and so we have to increase productivity.

That can be done on major fronts: forage production, forage utilization, feed utilization, and feed efficiency, so those are the areas we are very much focusing on. Given the fact that animals spend 80% of the time on forage, and we know that if we can increase one more day on grazing and have an animal out one more day, that's $3.6 million to cow/calf producers right there. That's the area we're focusing on, very much so, as well as genetic improvement around feed efficiency and quality.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Hall, do you have any comment?

[Michael Hall]

Probably the primary aspect would be genomics, genomic research, and what that translates into.

Taking it even further, there's an animal health component using genomic research for healthy animals so that you have to spend less on antibiotics and you have animals that are more naturally resistant to certain diseases. There is also an aspect of that that will translate over to human health; for example, we can see some of the health benefits in DHA milk. There's an opportunity to do research and further applied research that can extend from meat, milk, and the various products into health benefits for humans as well. Those are going to be the leading things going around the world: animal health and the human health side of the component.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

In terms of your primary focus—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

You have 15 seconds.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

—Mr. Hall, is it bio-security or livestock identification?

[Michael Hall]

Pardon me, what was your—

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Is your primary focus bio-security or livestock identification?

[Michael Hall]

As to our primary focus, I think Canada is on the path for livestock identification. We've had it for a while now, and it's just a matter of completing it, which needs to be done.

For us, bio-security and that whole animal health issue really impact our exports and trade.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you, Mr. Payne.

We'll now go to Mr. Garrison for five minutes, please.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

I won't be following up that line of questioning.

I think my questions are going to be primarily for Ms. Brocklebank.

You may have been in the room among previous witnesses when I was asking about the impact of climate change on food production and food security.

As far back as 2008, the UNFAO talked about the inevitable impacts of global warming on food security. I was interested hearing you talking about things like the margins for canola and beef production. If we see major changes in access to water and arable land, they are going to have very big impacts on beef production.

I was wondering whether in your research portfolio there's a consideration being given to try to do some of the research that might be needed now before we hit the crisis of climate change.

[Andrea Brocklebank]

Absolutely. Although a lot of our research, you could say, is directed towards improving productivity for producers, ultimately, if they're using less water and are more feed efficient, there are fewer days on feed and they produce less manure. All of those things are ultimately part of your sustainability as well.

Because I've been around these discussions before, I think it's important to point out that often the beef industry is the first that's sought to go, but over 50% of land in Canada cannot be sewn into crops at this current point, and if water is an issue, that's likely to continue.

Frankly, there we have an advantage as to some of the other protein sectors, but that's where we need to look at how we extend grazing so that we can keep those animals, because it's currently about 80%. How do you do those things, how do you improve water use? We're doing sustainability assessments right now to establish those benchmarks, to figure out where we are relative to the global framework, but then also how we move forward to identify opportunities for improvement.

It's very much positioning ourselves with benchmarks, but also then optimizing that through improved feed efficiency, water use, manure management, and those types of things.